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Pokemon Symbol A Swastika?

Red Mark On Pokemon Card Resembles
Swastika

Eleven-year-old Stephen Langsam prefers
Japanese-language Pokemon cards to the English version. But when he plunked
down $6 for a pack last month, he was upset to find one that included what
he thought was a swastika.

The red mark alongside the Pokemon
characters Golbat and Ditto was a "manji," a mirror image of the Nazi swastika.
In Japan, where the symbol predates the Nazis by centuries, it means good
fortune and can also represent a Buddhist temple.

But to Stephen, his friend Marc Specht
and their Jewish families, it was a Nazi swastika, the spidery symbol of
hate and the Holocaust, and it didn't belong in a children's game.

"We thought there had to be something
we could do because it can be terrible for children," said Marc's mother,
Myla Specht.

Nintendo of America, which makes Pokemon
products, announced Thursday that the card will be discontinued.

"What is appropriate for one culture
may not be for another," the company said in a statement.

The Japanese-language cards were not
meant for sale in the United States. A licensed domestic vendor that manufactures
Pokemon cards in English plans to issue the same card -- without the swastika
-- late next year.

Many were imported without company
approval to feed demand by collectors.

While the card's Japanese creators
continue to believe the "manji" carries a positive message, "they also
understand that there is the potential for others to misunderstand the
symbol," the Nintendo statement said.

Kenneth Jacobson, a spokesman for the
Anti-Defamation League, said the decision "showed sensitivity to the feelings
of Jews and others to whom the swastika is a very offensive symbol."

"We recognize there was no intention
to be offensive, but goods flow too easily from one place to another in
the world," he said. "The notion of isolating it in Asia would just create
more problems."

Steve Weisman, who was upset when a
10-year-old boy found the symbol in a Pokemon pack sold at the Collectible
Outlet in Oceanside, said Nintendo should do more "maybe a contribution
to a Holocaust group," he said.

"Whether it was done on purpose or
not, it created ill feelings," Weisman said.

"The whole premise of the game is kids
having fun. This reminded people of 6 million deaths."

But Larry Rosensweig, a Jew who is
director of the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach, Fla.,
said opposition to the symbol was "misplaced indignation."

"This has been used throughout Asia
for thousands of years and has nothing whatsoever to do with the Nazis
or anti-Semitism," he said. "There are plenty of things out there that
people should be offended about. Put your indignation into some more productive
and appropriate fight."